Proper Introductions
by Ridley C. James
Summary: Missing scene/tag for Episode 10: Pliers.


Proper Introductions

By: Ridley C. James

A/N: Missing scene for Episode 10: Pliers. Because I loved seeing this side of MacGyver, but so wanted to see a little more about his mom. Jack insisted on coming, because well, Jack has to watch Mac's back.

RCJ

When Mac climbed down from the tree house Jack and Valerie's father were waiting on him. Mac glanced up to the laboratory he'd just passed on to someone who needed it as much as he once had. He nodded to the young girl's dad. "I think she's waiting to give you the grand tour."

"I don't know how to thank you." Valerie's father glanced from Mac to Jack. "Both of you."

"Just promise you'll spend time here with Valerie." Mac gestured to the rope. "You might build something really great."

"Like some stamina," Valerie's dad smiled, taking the rope from Mac. "Or at least some upper body strength."

"It's not as hard as it looks," Jack said, nudging Mac's arm. "I made it up quicker than this guy."

Mac rolled his eyes. Jack had helped him and Bozer clean away the years of neglect from the old lab. It was a good excuse to demonstrate his athletic prowess over the younger men and a chance to boss them around like they were a couple of recruits.

"We could race back to the car," Mac suggested as Valerie's dad started his ascent. He turned to head towards the road. "I think we both know who would win."

"Says the guy who took off cross country with the damsel in distress leaving his partner to face off with five guys in hand to hand." Jack rolled his shoulders. "I'm still sore and that cot in the cell didn't help matters. It was like sleeping on cement, worse than boot camp."

"If you hadn't threatened to punch a police officer we might have been sleeping in the awesome hotel rooms we had booked."

"I was defending your honor."

"I'm not a damsel in distress, Jack." Mac grinned, secretly pleased that Jack's threat had his old middle school nemesis looking more than a little concerned.

Jack's face turned serious. "Yeah, well it sounds like you could have used a few good rescues when you were Valerie's age."

"I'm afraid she doesn't have it much easier." Mac glanced over his shoulder again, understanding all too well that Valerie would not have a list of people clamoring to join her. "I don't know if she has anyone to bring here but her dad."

"Sometimes one person, if it's the right person for the job, is all you need."

Mac could agree with that. Bozer had been that person Mac needed as a kid.

Jack bumped his shoulder again as they made it out of the woods into the clearing. His teasing grin was back in place. "So, did Valerie think the lab was Totes Adorbs?"

"Excuse me?" Mac quirked a brow at his partner.

"You know, that's what kids say these days." Jack made a rolling motion with his hands. "You need to get with the program, Dude. It means amazing, awesome, beyond belief. This is why you have no idea what emoji to use in text messages."

Mac laughed. "So now you speak middle school girl?"

"My vast knowledge of obscure things would blow your mind, Kid."

"Like Pokemon?" Mac stopped at the driver's side door of the SUV they'd borrowed from Thornton. Jack had promised they'd have it back before Bozer finished giving her and Riley the rest of the tour of their hometown, including all the filming locations from his infamous short film.

"You know it, Geekachu." Jack took out the keys but instead of hitting the key fob to unlock the driver's door, he popped the hatch.

"Don't." Mac held up a hand. "Just, no."

"You like Brainasaur better?" Jack asked, flashing another shit-eating grin at Mac as he made his way to the back of the vehicle.

"I like my real name." Mac folded his arms over his chest, standing his ground. "You should try it sometime."

"I gotta tell you, Buddy, Angus has never done it for me." Only half of Jack's body was visible now as he dug through the back compartment. "And I'm from Texas."

"Then stick with Mac." MacGyver's curiosity got the best of him and he moved to see what Jack was up to.

"So no more terms of endearment?" Jack had shifted a sleeping bag, pulled a Styrofoam cooler close to him. "But that's one of my things."

"I'd rather you keep it to Dude and Bro if you must." Mac frowned at his partner, thinking it was too early for a drink, even for them.

"I must." Jack lifted the lid of the cooler, pulling out not a couple of beers but a bouquet of deep crimson and white flowers.

Mac furrowed his brow. "If those are for me, you should have gone with daisies."

Jack smirked. "They're not for you, smartass."

Mac grinned. "I may not be as up on what's new and hip as you are, but I don't think middle school girls go for Amarylis and Lilies, even as treehouse warming gift."

"They are not for Valerie either and before you say it, I'm not fool enough to believe I can bribe Patty into paying for that stupid mini-van with a bunch of flowers."

"Because you learned your lesson on that with the tank we destroyed in Istanbul a few years ago."

"It wasn't flowers that time, it was the finest Belgium chocolate and a teddy bear, proving the woman is impervious to any female bribery."

"Please tell me you aren't helping Bozer with some kind of plan for him to impress Riley because trust me when I say Bozer despite his many good qualities is not the smooth operator he thinks he is and your inept meddling will not help matters." Mac had decided they didn't need any more chances for disaster to strike on this mini-vacation.

"I'll have you know I understand the intricate workings of a woman's heart as well as I do the mechanics of my favorite assault rifle, Dude. I, unlike someone I know, had a date for my senior prom, two in fact."

"Of course you did. I'm sure one was the homecoming queen and the other was captain of the cheerleading squad." Mac rolled his eyes. "Who's the lucky lady this time?"

"Your mom."

If Mac had ever believed that Jack could no longer surprise him after all their years of working together, he was wrong. His partner's reply was as shocking and unexpected as the painful jolt Mac had taken from the Taser earlier.

"What did you say?" Mac managed around the lump that had sprung to his throat.

"I said I want to meet your mom. You're my best friend and my partner." Jack looked from the flowers to Mac, as if that explanation should sum it all up for the younger agent. "I think it's time you made some proper introductions, Brother."

Mac swallowed hard. "My mom is dead."

Jack shrugged. "So is my dad, but that didn't stop me from introducing you two years ago. After Cairo, remember?"

Mac involuntarily flinched at the mention of Cairo and what happened when they made it back home. Jack hadn't been able to go to the graveyard on his own after that mission, still recuperating from his injuries. He'd begged Mac to sign him out of the hospital, take him for the visit with his father. It seemed Jack had made a promise to his dad that he'd always come see him after every close call, and Cairo was a close call if there ever was one. Mac hadn't realized at the time where they were going, but he'd made a promise too, he'd told Jack he'd do anything if he just kept breathing until they made it back stateside.

"I'm not you, Jack."

"In case you haven't been paying attention, this isn't really about me."

Mac held his partner's gaze, unable to look at the flowers he was holding. "I haven't been there since…"

"Since when?"

"Since the day we buried her." Admitting it out loud had his eyes stinging. It was hard to look at Jack.

"Then I'd say you're long overdue for a visit, kiddo." Jack tossed an arm over Mac's shoulder, seemingly nonplussed by the confession. "Let's go."

Jack hadn't given Mac another chance to refuse the idea. He'd all but pushed Mac in the vehicle, stopping short of buckling his seat belt. He'd shoved the flowers in Mac's hand and prattled on about the specifics of their next mission, pausing only for breath and for Mac to point out the roads they needed to take. The trip was over too quickly and Mac still hadn't processed what he was going to do once they were there. He found himself standing mutely at the grave stone, staring at the cement marker with the carved angels and ominous date. He felt like a helpless kid again.

"So…." Jack started, giving him a little nudge. "Are you going to introduce me or not?"

Mac ignored his partner, his focus remaining on the cold stone. At the moment he wanted nothing but to maybe punch Jack in the face for dragging him into this ridiculous situation. If it had been anyone else he might have done just that, of course Mac knew all too well that no one else, including his grandfather or Bozer had managed to do what Jack had just accomplished by, well, being Jack.

"Don't do that."

The harshness of Jack's voice had Mac finally meeting his gaze.

"Don't close yourself off and try and shut me out." Jack shook his head. "I hate it when you do that. It scares the hell out of me sometime."

Mac didn't bother denying that he had no idea what the older agent was talking about. He'd had enough teachers call him on it over the years, even the therapist he'd been forced to see after Afghanistan had noted that Mac's key defense mechanism was to simply shut the world and everyone around him out, shifting his focus to something else completely, like shaping paper clips into random objects.

"I didn't bring you here to bring up bad memories, Kid." Jack gestured to the headstone. "It may not seem like it now, but you're going to thank me later. Now find some freaking manners and introduce me to your mom."

Mac knew he could turn around and leave. Get in the SUV, refuse to move until Jack took them back into town. But one thing he hated more than the thought of actually going through with the stupid act of talking to an inanimate rock was the idea he would disappoint the man standing next to him. So he sucked it up, just wanting to get it over with as soon as possible so they could go.

"Jack Dalton, this is my mother." Mac glanced at the rock, an unexpected feeling of nostalgia washing over him. He glanced at Jack. "Mom, this is my partner, Jack."

Unlike Mac, Jack didn't miss a beat. He took a step forward, kneeling to place the bouquet of Amaryllis and Lilies at the base of the headstone. "It's an honor to finally meet you, Mrs. MacGyver. Your son is all about taking his sweet time."

Mac blinked hard, more than ready to make his way through the matrix of graves and back to the car. Unfortunately for him, Jack did the unthinkable and sat down, making himself comfortable. He leaned back on his hands, staring innocently up at Mac. "Well?"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"It wouldn't exactly be polite to rush off so soon, now would it? We just got here." Jack turned his gaze to the rock. "Besides Ms. MacGyver would probably like to hear all the things her son's been up to in the years since you two last talked. I have a lot to tell her."

"Jack, give me a break."

"I can fill in most of the blanks from high school thanks to Bozer and his storytelling skills, but I'm a little iffy on the whole MIT stint." Jack turned to the rock. "I imagine our boy spent most of his time in the library and science lab or locked away in his room with his precious books and beakers. You'll be glad to know he's not exactly the partying kind, Mam."

"She might be interested to know you did everything in your power to change that." Mac squatted, took a knee, but refused to sit down. He glared at Jack. "Maybe I should tell her about the first time I had Tequila shots, or when you introduced me to your good friend, Jack Daniels."

"What was I supposed to do when I found out you'd never been drunk off your ass? Excuse my language, Mam," Jack looked contritely to the rock before returning his gaze to Mac. "It was my job to make sure none of the other guys in our unit found out about it before you'd found your sea legs. Thanks to me, you can now hold your liquor and even out drink a guy twice your skinny self."

"That's just what every mom wants to hear, Jack." MacGyver found himself looking at the rock, tempted to lower his voice. "Maybe you should tell her about the trip you planned for me to that house of ill repute in Saigon."

Jack laughed. "Damn, Mac. The fact that you just called one of the finest and classiest gentlemen clubs in all of Ho Chi Minh City a house of ill repute is better justification than I can ever give for my actions where your love life is concerned." Jack looked once more to the stone. "Forgive me Ms. MacGyver for trying to bring a little fun into your son's extremely sheltered and stoic life."

"My life was just fine before I met you, Jack." The words came out much harsher than Mac meant, the surge of anger he felt catching him off guard. "I was completely fine before you came along."

To Mac's surprise Jack didn't flinch. In fact, his stupid smile stayed in place. "I'll take pissed off over closed off any day of the week, Brother. Go on and tell me how you really feel. I can take it."

"Shit." After a long moment and a silent staring show down between him and his partner, Mac sat down on the ground, his shoulder almost brushing Jack's. He ran both his hands through his hair. "I'm not mad at you."

"Mind telling me who it is you're so angry with, then?" Jack gestured to the rock. "We're all ears."

"It's not her, if that's what you're thinking." Mac held Jack's gaze for a moment then moved his focus to a patch of weeds at his feet. He plucked at the longer strands of grass. "She didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't like she planned on dying."

"That fact didn't exactly keep me from being pissed as hell at my old man." Jack's smile faded. "I called him every name in the book, and some I'm pretty sure aren't even in the book. He up and left the game just when things were getting good, and I hated him for it."

The confession wasn't completely unexpected. Mac knew enough about Jack and his father to understand their relationship had for most parts been a rocky one. Still, he couldn't imagine Jack holding a grudge against anyone, let alone someone he loved. "That doesn't sound like you."

"Losing my dad changed me, rearranged parts I couldn't begin to understand. I was really messed up for a while." Jack ran a hand over his mouth. "Some of the things I did…well, it was like I was watching another person from a safe distance."

Jack looked at Mac. "Did I ever tell you I dug up his grave?"

Mac shook his head. "For real?"

"Oh yeah." Jack nodded. "It was about a week after he passed, and I woke up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night, panicked. At first I thought it was a typical flashback you know, like I was back in the godforsaken desert, but then I realized I couldn't remember his face. I mean, I had pictures, but I wanted to see his face, touch him, just one more time, so I could get it exactly right in my mind."

"Did you…"Mac hesitated, looking once more at his mother's tombstone. He had the profound realization that he and Jack were actually sitting atop a mound of dirt that covered her coffin which held the remains of her body. Intellectually he knew that it was impossible, but a part of him imagined her completely intact, looking exactly like he'd remembered on the last day he'd seen her.

"I'd just made it to the steel vault when the police showed up." Jack gave a strangled laugh, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "Come to think of it I spent that night in a jail cell on one hell of an uncomfortable cot, too."

"At least you thought of him. You wanted to see him."

"It took me over a year to go back after that night, Mac." Jack rested his elbows on his knees, looked off over the mass of stones and flowers around them. "And even then I couldn't talk to him. I'd just stand there, all broken up and hurting. Not understanding why I bothered to show up, but not able to leave."

"I wasn't even brave enough to come." Mac felt a hot tear try to escape past his defenses. He quickly swiped a hand over his face. "I couldn't face her or what was even left of her. It's one of the reasons I couldn't stand the thought of coming back here. What kind of son comes home and doesn't even visit his dead mother?"

"The kind that's human, the kind that has a broken heart."

"Don't make excuses for me."

"These places are scary for grownups, Dude." Jack bumped his shoulder against Mac's, gesturing to the imposing cement around them. "I can't imagine what it was like for a kid…"

"I haven't been a kid in a long time. And even when I was, it wasn't fear that kept me away." Mac locked gazes with the older agent. Truth be told there wasn't much that frightened Mac, aside from failing those he cared about it. "I was ashamed."

"Of what?"

"Not being there for her when it counted the most." Mac had retreated to the only safety he'd known then, his books, his experiments, anything that kept his feelings at bay and put his mind in the forefront. "I wasn't with her when she died, Jack. I couldn't save her."

"You can't think your mom dying was somehow your fault?" When Mac didn't answer, Jack turned so he was facing him, his back to the grave stone. He kicked Mac's boot. "Listen to me. What would you tell Valerie if she believed that about her mom getting sick?"

"Valerie's dad didn't leave her the first chance he got." Mac had never said it out loud, not even to Bozer. But he'd thought it, a thousand times over the years he'd thought it. "I think he blamed me. Or maybe I was just a reminder of what he'd lost, I don't know."

"I don't know why your old man did what he did, either, Dude. But I can damn guarantee you it had everything to do with the man he was then and what he was going through, and nothing to do with the kid he left behind."

Mac wanted to believe Jack. He hadn't realized how much he needed for Jack's version of things to be the truth. The only person who had the complete story was a thousand miles away for all Mac knew.

"Maybe one day he can tell you this himself," Jack continued. "But until he does, you need to hear this. Nothing you did or didn't do caused your mom to die or your dad to leave. It sucks. I hate like hell that it happened to you, and that this latest thing with Nikki has got all this stuff stirred up again, but you are not the problem, you never were."

A fresh wave of pain washed over Mac at the mention of Nikki's name. Cool anger rode right along with it. He stared at Jack, a few pieces falling into place as he thought back on his partner's pushing him to get in touch with his dad, and now the reconciliation of sorts with his mom. Jack had seemed to know that Nikki's betrayal and exit had shaken some things lose, opened old wounds bringing insecurities in its wake. Leave it to Jack to try and save Mac from something Mac didn't even realize was lurking in the darkness.

"You were right," Mac said after a long moment.

Jack looked confused. "About?"

"What you said about Valerie not needing a lot of people in her life, as long as she had the right person by her side." Mac had been lucky enough to have Bozer to help navigate his childhood, and Jack when Mac was trying to figure out all the intricacies of the adult world.

"I'm a smart guy." Jack grinned. "Maybe not as smart as my partner but then again I had a whole lot more fun in high school than he did."

"I had fun in school," Mac insisted. "It was just a different kind of fun."

Jack looked at the tombstone. "And by fun he means explosions and meltdowns, Mrs. MacGyver. Just so we're clear."

"It was all in the name of science." Mac moved his gaze to the rock, trying to imagine that his mother could really hear him. Unlike Jack and his talk of metaphysics and the afterlife, Mac found it hard to make a tangible connection with the woman who seemed more ghost and faded memory than mother. But for the same reason he'd let Jack drag him here, he'd give it his best try. "You understand, right Mom?"

Mac looked at Jack again. "She bought me my first magnifying glass and microscope for my fifth birthday. We swabbed discarded plates and cups from my party and made slides to look at after all the guests left."

"Uhh, gross," Jack groaned. "I'm surrounded by nerds."

Mac looked back to the headstone, the Amaryllis and Lilies resting against one of the angels. For the first time since coming back to town, he felt like he was finally home. "Thanks for this, Jack."

"No problem, Dude." Jack glanced over to Mac, lifting his fist for Mac to bump his against it. "Wait until I meet your old man."

Mac had lifted his hand to follow through on their typical ritual, but stopped. "You want to meet my dad?"

"You bet I want to meet him." Jack knocked his fist against Mac's. "I can't wait."

Mac took a moment to try and envision a scenario where both his larger than life father and Jack Dalton were brought together. It was easier to imagine his long dead mom sitting across from them, tilting her head, pushing her blond hair out of her eyes to share a knowing smile with Mac at the explosive prospect of combining such a highly unstable and combustible mixture.

"Are you alright with that?" Jack asked.

Mac shook his head, doubting he had a real choice in the matter. "As long as that introduction doesn't land you in another jail cell."

"The only thing I can promise is I'll always have your back." Jack grinned at Mac. "And I sure as hell won't be bringing _him_ any flowers."

RCJ


End file.
